May 21, 2008

Shaken, not stirred

The dudely and I have a house cocktail. It is a dirty gin martini, shaken and served straight up. The dudely’s preparation is perfect and cannot be reproduced by me no matter how hard I try. In fact the only dirty martini I’ve had that was better than his was at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center four years ago. He would agree with me. I think the view and location created an advantage that had nothing to do with the actual cocktail though.

About a year ago I added these great vintage cocktail napkins to our martini gear. The napkins are in the shape of painters’ palettes and feature hand applique and embroidery of a shaker filling martini glasses. I picked them up at a local consignment shop for a song, just $5 for a set of five. Because they are white, and I love them so, clear cocktails are all I can bear to use them with.

Over the weekend we added another fabulous consignment shop find to our collection. This time it was a vintage glass cocktail shaker with a very mid-century mod kind of strainer lid. I think we both honed in on this one at the same moment. Although we both were playing it cool there was never really a doubt that it would come home with us. At just $6 how could it not?